Safe Haven

In case anybody cares, I read 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus the other day, and Hebrews and James yesterday. It reads differently now; I tried to be mindful of verses that a Protestant would see as definitive for those traditional notions of justification. The best I found within Hebrews was 10:14: "For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." [There's your distinction between justification and sanctification right there.--ed.] Simmer down; let's think through this. Remembering what this book is for--convincing Jewish Christians not to abandon their faith in the face of pressure--what do we see? Well, we see sacrificial language all over it; there is much talk of priests and mediation. We are not surprised to see high Christology in chapter 1, as the identity and qualifications of Jesus are precisely at issue if he exercises a permanent priesthood superior to Aaron. We have to add in another good Protestant verse before we go on; ...

5 More Sure Signs You Are Jason Kettinger 5. You use the word "barnacle" as a swear word. 4. You lobby for the cat's name to be "Squidward." 3. "The Riot" is a person, not an event. 2. You think the battle for greatest composer of all time is a dead heat between David Foster and Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds. 1. You do secondhand impressions of Charles Barkley. "That's turribull!" I know.

The Chair My mind raced, No, thundered; Andretti at Speedway; Horses in Montana; No respite Thrashing without purpose Hoping without reason Silence without peace Night without rest Morning and night without a day But in the faint grey I saw them Two towers A refuge from nowhere Bringing back memory Light in darkness The prodigal mind returns For this is home This is family Did Martyn sit here?

My abiding passion, especially now, is Scripture. A love of Scripture is the great gift from my former Reformed heritage. Catholics need to learn to not be afraid of it, to read it as much as they can, and to memorize it. It's not a Protestant thing, it's a Catholic thing. At least it's supposed to be. You want to reach Protestants? Know the Scriptures. We Catholics are in the community within which it is rightly interpreted, anyway. What have we to fear? Nothing. [Then you have other books to read.--ed.] I know. All in good time. Christians have 3 main choices, of course: Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant. Within that Protestant umbrella certainly there are more choices, but 'Protestant' presupposes a reasonably standard historical, exegetical, and theological approach. The challenge I want to issue to those dear readers is this: Have you begun to grapple with the reality of Protestant disunity and its implications for dogma? If we wanted to be jerks about it, w...